Saturday out for arts

 A trip to the movies with my partner Keith Stanley weekend before last was to a great Artist film about an artist I didn't care much about but was curious to learn more. It was to see Mr. Turner and the friends who said it's a must see were right it was full of stuff I love, drama, costumes, historic settings and in this case the story of a painter who had a big impact on artists who have followed him.  It's nominated for Oscars and even without that was an educational experience full of beautiful cinematography.

After the movie we went for lunch at our favorite downtown tea house called Teaism where they serve all sorts of teas and Asian influenced foods. We both enjoyed a heaping plate of Korean Beef Barbecue with brown rice and a Chinese Cabbage salad followed by a Salty chocolate pecan oatmeal cookie! Too good so it's a good thing we walked six miles over 12,000 steps around downtown before the movie and after lunch. 

Teaism has great big Koi fish in a pond at the base of the lower level stairs that always want to come greet anyone who comes near their home. After we said hello I suggested we continue down the block and go see some real Turner paintings at National Gallery of Art just a couple blocks away. My favorite Turner in the collection of about six is this one of a moon lit night showing a pier and port where coal ships delivered coal from the mines of United Kingdom to London. 

detail of the lower right corner of the full painting above. 

If you get a chance to see it in a theater it's going to be better than on a small screen with all the spectacular Turner like skies...

letters from Vincent

gallery talk about Vincent VanGogh's letters

self portrait by Vincent Van Gogh at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

I enjoyed a lecture on a Friday afternoon, but the take home message was even better! The lecture was on Vincent VanGogh's letters. They were missing 10 of the 12 VanGogh paintings the author intended to reference in Vincents letters but things happen and as it turns out those ten paintings were moved to storage to make way for renovations. Still two paintings for an hours talk were enough to keep us interested.

What I learned was that Vincent was a intelligent sensitive guy, he spoke and wrote 3 languages fluently: Dutch, French and English. He was dependent on several substances, like many modern artists, caffeine, nicotine and alcohol and at one point lived for 14 days with only his coffee and cigarettes. He was a work- a- holic when it came to painting and drawing. He often completed paintings in a single day and one year painted 230 canvases. He only sold one of his paintings while he was alive which is what is so tragic I believe he is the most famous and popular painter in our time. Many people have studied his work and his letters to help us all understand him and his life better.

The reason the historian at NGA decided to do this talk about his letters, was to celebrate the completion by historians at the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam of a six volume collection of all his known letters which has taken since 1994 to complete. They collected all his known letters, scanned them, translated them and notated them. These historians sought out and researched all the art works and literature and people mentioned in Vincent's letters and combined all to create the definitive collection of the letters which take up six volumes. There completed work is now on the Internet for us to explore and study. I spent most of this past Sunday afternoon reading just a few letters online. Fascinating letters about the relations between Vincent and his younger brother Theo who was an art dealer in Paris and who supported him to become the great painter. According the the lecture Friday,Vincent wasn't crazy but he did have seizures and that is why he checked himself into a sanitarium where he painted the self portrait with dark blue back ground we see in the NGA's collection. Vincent wrote he is drawn and pale (green) because he wasn't taking care of himself instead focusing on painting. He also painted a second self portrait as he was recovering both to show his brother how much good going to the doctor's care did him and that he was fit to keep working at his passion of drawing and painting with Theo's support.

What I enjoy most about the website is that I can see a copy of the original long hand letters as I read an English translation and I can click on links that show me all of the paintings or drawings he is writing about if they still exist. Also I can find out who he is writing about in the notes that accompany the translation's texts. It is a brilliant experience using this Internet archive, way beyond any normal book. I think in some way better than a printed version could be but I would still like to have a look at some of the six volumes they did print.

vangoghletters.org

following John Quincy Adams

silhouette from National Galleries of Scotland.

The other day on Twitter, where I have been casually following the 1809 voyage notes by John Quincy Adams posted daily in tandem with the two hundredth anniversary of his voyage to Europe. The notes directed me to the Mass. Historical Society's blog where I discovered a post about all the books he was reading to kill the long hours of a two month journey where there was nothing to do but eat, exercise and sleep. Ok, they played some card games too but he did a lot of reading. I was curious about the books he read. Most were very classical histories of Roman men but JQ Adams seemed to be having great fun reading a lady"s letters. I looked the lady's letters up since it is available online. I started reading the same edition he was reading. Now it is on Google books from an original copy preserved in the New York Public Library collection. I found it a fascinating read, all the more interesting on the internet while looking up all the towns the author writes about on Google maps. Words I don't know also easy to look up on google or in dictionaries. What a way to read, it strikes me as very twenty first century: Twitter, Blogs, Google, Historical magic with nearly real time world view of the landscape in addition to numerous pictures posted on the maps by all sorts of modern people. It is like magically melting time and space. I can read descriptions of places and people in 1773 Scotland and go look at the satellite view of the areas and zoom in and observe micro details of towns, roads, lakes and geography and then see modern photographs of the same place as it looks now. I love the future.

http://www.masshist.org/blog/107

copy of the post on Mass. History blog:>>>>

8/11/1809: Mrs Grant's Letters. Anne McVicar Grant, Letters from the mountains: being the real correspondence of a lady, between the years 1773 and 1807. An 1809 edition (Boston: printed by Greenough and Stebbins) is available via the Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2. In his long diary entry, JQA writes: "I employed much of [the day] in reading Mrs. Grant's letters, which I find more interesting than Plutarch. I return to them of choice, but Plutarch is a task, and a heavy one. I never could read him through. I find it especially hard to read him after a sleepless night; after two harder still."<<<<<

Anne McVicar Grant, Letters from the mountains 1773 - 1807

Above is a link to the google page for a look at this old book. I found that the introduction was kind of heavy but if you scroll to the first letter it is a fun historical read. Let me know what you think!